From dancing to fighting, UFC's Kaufman always on her toes

Canadian bantamweight Sarah Kaufman, seen at the Zuma Martial Arts gym in Victoria, B.C. where she works and trains, makes her UFC debut Saturday at UFC 166 in Houston against Jessica (Evil) Eye. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Neil Davidson

Sarah Kaufman of Victoria, B.C., celebrates after defeating Roxanne Modafferi in the third round of a Strikeforce Challengers event in Everett, WA, on July 23, 2010. Kaufman will look to reclaim her Strikeforce bantamweight title from champion (Rowdy) Ronda Rousey on Aug. 18 in San Diego. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Strikeforce - Esther Lin

Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to pay-per-view on Saturday with UFC 166 at the Toyota Centre in Houston, Texas. In a women’s bantamweight bout, Victoria, B.C. native Sarah Kaufman makes her UFC debut against Jessica Eye. Taking a break from his fight-week preparations, Kaufman went 1-on-1 with Postmedia News mixed martial arts reporter Dave Deibert, discussing hitting opponents with her groin, her pre-fight snack routine and how she’d answer the UFC gods if they came calling …

POSTMEDIA: You posted on Twitter recently a picture of a birthday basket sent to you that included a big bag of Nibs. Is that your guilty-pleasure food when you're not watching your weight?

KAUFMAN: After the weigh-ins, I always crave Nibs, for some reason. In the States, you can’t buy them. I’ve never seen them. So I always bring a bag down with me to the fight, specifically to eat after the weigh-ins. That bag actually had a note on it, saying ‘Not to be eaten until after you destroy evil.’ (Opponent Jessica Eye’s nickname is ‘Evil.’)

POSTMEDIA: What Canadian stereotype do you most live up to?

KAUFMAN: Probably that I’m quite polite.

POSTMEDIA: Which of your scars tells the best story?

KAUFMAN: Probably the scar that’s directly on my forehead. I got it when I was two years old. I specifically remember: it was a little kids table and it was a turtle. The shell was the tabletop and you sat on its head and tail. But if you flipped it upside down, you could sit in it and you could spin it around like a top, a merry-go-round. I remember my parents were out of town. I had a babysitter: ‘Time to get ready for ballet.’ I remember running to go get ballet stuff and tripping, and I fell head first into the corner of this table. I had to go get stitches. I was all proud because I got a lollypop. My parents came back, I had this big patch on my head.

KAUFMAN: In terms of dance, point was definitely very hard on the skin of the feet. Your toes are always constantly blistered and callused. But I’ve definitely done more damage to my toes in MMA than I ever did in ballet … I broke a toe on Shawn Jordan’s huge calf. We were wrestling around. I jumped in to do a round with him, just messing around to warm up. I tried to spin behind him. As I did, my toe somehow got caught on his calf. After the round, I looked down and I could kind of grab it from the top and bend it entirely sideways.

POSTMEDIA: How would the high school version of you have done in a school-yard scrap?

KAUFMAN: The funny part – I was extremely shy and very quiet. I really didn’t say anything unless it was, like, to answer a question in class to tell them the right answer because that’s the person that I was. I wasn’t hot-tempered but if you get me mad – with my siblings, we definitely scrapped a bit. My thing was, I never wanted to hit anything because I never wanted to hurt myself or break something and have to pay to get it fixed. I’m still the same way now. If people are mad, and they punch a hole in the wall – I would just never do that. For one, cause I wouldn’t want to hurt my hand. For two, because I wouldn’t then want to have to fix the hole I put in the wall. I was kind of the same then. But I think if you really got me really going, I don’t know if I would have done well in a fight but I would have put up a fight if I had to.

POSTMEDIA: If the UFC gods came to you and said they’d guarantee you a title reign but you had to give up three years at the end of your life, would you take that deal?

KAUFMAN: Yup. I actually don’t want to live that long so an extra three years wouldn’t matter to me.

POSTMEDIA: Name something you’ve done in the past week that you wish you could have a do-over?

KAUFMAN: My sparring from last (Monday) night.

POSTMEDIA: Just a bad session?

KAUFMAN: It was just a terrible day. The day led into not the best session. It was a brutal day. You know those little things: you go to park and you can’t park, and then someone steals your parking spot. You’re already frustrated because you went to pick something up and it wasn’t ready when it was supposed to be ready, and they screwed it up when it was finally ready. It was like four hours straight of the most ridiculous little things. I tried to come back to the gym, I had to do an interview. The bridge was up so I had to drive to another bridge. Those little itsy bitsy things that just eat away and then to top it off, a session that you’re not the happiest with. Grrr. It made me not want to eat dinner last night and that never happens (laughs).

KAUFMAN: Hit him with his groin? (As retold by St-Pierre, after his UFC 100 win over Thiago Alves: “Round four, when I came back in my corner I told my trainer Greg Jackson that I pulled my groin. All of my trainers are very worried. Greg Jackson answers back to me, “I don’t care! This is how champions are made! Fight on it and hit him with your groin.”) So good. I don’t think he’s ever told me anything like that before and I wish he would. I would laugh so hard. 'Hit her with your groin!’ I’d be like, 'OK, Greg. I’ll hit her with my groin.' That would be amazing (laughs).

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From dancing to fighting, UFC's Kaufman always on her toes

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